The Hindu : Sport : Narjit Singh is the king of the ring

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 22, 2007
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Sport

Sport

Narjit Singh is the king of the ring

V.V. Subrahmanyam

Boxing fetches highest number of medals for the host

— Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

PROUD POSSESSION: Narjit Singh claimed the lone gold for India in boxing.

HYDERABAD: Podhramdam Narjit Singh was the ‘king of the ring’.

He scripted a golden finish for India in the fourth edition of the Military World Games clinching the boxing gold in the 54kg category with a methodical 12-8 win over German Marcel Schneider at Gachibowli Indoor Stadium here on Saturday.

The 23-year-old Havaldar in the Gorkha Regiment is being coached by Cuban Louis Enrique for the last three years at the Army Institute of Sports at Pune.

A roar of applause greeted him when he entered the ring and when he left it the roar reached a crescendo after his splendid victory against the shorter German.

Left was not right

In the beginning, Narjit gave an impression of not getting his predominant left hook right. It looked as if he was punching the air repeatedly as the German was good at dodging. However, with an odd powerful right jab he took a 5-3 lead at the end of second round. In the third round, both Narjit and Marcel picked just one point each as safety seemed to have taken precedence.

The Indian boxer raised the level of his game with an array of strong left and right hooks in the fourth round and had his opponent running for cover.

Narjit’s aggression stunned the German. A couple of clinical right hooks were good enough to help Narjit take a comfortable 11-8 lead and he soon clinched the issue with another powerful blow to trigger off celebrations across the venue.“After I saw Marcel’s semifinal bout, I became more confident, for he was shorter than me. It was a strategy not to go for attack from the word go today. Don’t attack, ‘just feign’ were the words of advice from coach Louis Enrique,” Narjit said. But in the final round, the message from the coach was clear – go for an all-out attack. And I am delighted that this worked,” recalled an elated Indian boxer.

“This is the most satisfying win of my career and I could not have asked for a better finish,” the Indian boxer from Manipur said after becoming the only individual gold medallist for India in these Games.

Tri-colours were fluttering everywhere and roars of “Chak De India”, “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” reverberated to provide that inspiration for this Army boxer.

“I thank the crowd for their great support right through,” he remarked.

The other Indian boxers who lost in the semifinals — H.K. Beliwal (51 kg), G. Satya Raju (64 kg), D. Bhagyarajan (69 kg) and Mohinder Thapa (81 kg) — were presented bronze medals, bringing the tally of medals from boxing to one gold and four bronze – the highest for the host from any discipline.

The results (finals):

48kg: Linag Gao (Chn) bt Hyeok Gu Seung (Kor) 23-11. 51kg: Linzhi Gao (Chn) bt Franklin John (USA) 19-5.

54kg: P. Narjit Singh (Ind) bt Marcel Schneider (Ger) 12-8. 57kg: Abdugaffor Umarov (Uzb) bt Andrei Treslkov (Rus) 17-6. 60kg: A. Bahodir (Uzb) bt Sandro Schaer (Ger) 29-12. 64kg: Zubok Alexei (Rus) bt Yauheni Ramashkevich (Blr) 23-10. 69kg: F. Rawshan (Uzb) bt Tofig Ahmadov (Aze) 32-14. 75kg: Shved Danil (Rus) bt Mikalai Vesialov (Blr) 19-4. 81kg: Kovelev Serguei (Rus) w\o Aleh Dymakavets (Blr). 91kg: Elyorbek Gulomov (Uzb) bt Joe Guzman (U.S.) 27-7. 91kg +: Andrew Shepherd (U.S.) bt Erkan Teper (Ger) 15-7.